Summer Mcetins:. 73- 



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you most admire if they are only potato blooms, or bean blossoms. But 

 you can have better things than these in your door yards, surely, when 

 there is such a vast and wonderful variety of 



Little seedlets, brown and bare, 



Waiting birtli. 



Touch of earth, , 



Little seedlets everywhere. 



Buds and blossoms rioting. 



On the air. 



Perfume rare. 

 How the birds enjoy and sing. 



My memory carries me back to a quaint old-fashioned house, arr 

 eastern country home, where the door yard always suggested some weird 

 sweet symphony. A stately soul untrammeled by fashion's dictates here 

 walked in glad freedom amidst the shrubs and flowers. 



When the first dawn of spring appeared the snowdrops that border 

 the walk, in generous profusion, came forth to greet the passer by, and 

 just a little later grape hyacinths, ixias, sparaxis and the crocus were in 

 riotous bloom. Then came hyacinths, tulips and daffodils, so that the 

 border was a ceaseless delight. After the bulbs had gone to sleep these 

 borders were always set with pansies, later with petunias, so that there 

 was not a time from March to October without brave show of blossoms- 

 along this walk. 



This yard seemed to be the home for every known variety of flow- 

 ering shrub. There were clumps of syringas, clusters of spireas, lilacs, 

 deutzias, snowballs and snowdrops, acacias, California yellow bells, while 

 on porches and trellises were honeysuckles and the white, purple and 

 lavender clematis. The old-fashioned flowers were not forgotten ; there 

 were hollyhocks, day lilies, peonies and every variety of the old-fashioned 

 flags, which our grandmothers called "flower de Luce." Great beds of 

 gladioli — which are now called gladiola — were in the garden ; also a 

 grand display of the best annuals, such as China asters, poppies, salvias, 

 sweet peas, verbenas, cornflowers, salpiglosis, scabiosa, and there w,ere 

 blue bells, a hedge of rudbeckia, a long row of columbine, and much 

 showing of cosmos as autumn came along. Nasturtiums, both the major 

 and minor, were greatly in evidence, and there were roses of every kind 

 and quality. Among the roses sweet alyssum was freely sown, and there 

 were ever in early spring the forget-me-nots and johnny Jump-ups," a 

 small variety of pansies, which are perennial. I took my first lessons 

 in flower growing in that dear old door yard and garden, and ascribe to 

 its influence the strong taste in floriculture wdiich seems to be my 

 heritage, and which has ever defied all the set rules and bounds of 

 ordinary planting. 



